


Reading Between the Lines

by Marta



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: Family, Gap Filler, Gen, Historians, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-05
Updated: 2009-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta/pseuds/Marta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All through her childhood, Elanor’s had a question about the Red Book. Why can’t she find answers?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Between the Lines

Elanor had never thought her da a liar, but there it was. Things simply couldn't have happened as he wrote them, or as he let Mister Frodo write them and didn't correct them – she never could get a straight answer on that point. Or, if she was being truly generous, she might allow that they  _could_  have happened that way but her da and Mister Frodo certainly couldn't have known it. Which worked out to the same thing, really.

That story of Sméagol surfacing one last time on the stairs to Cirith Ungol, looking down over his sleeping companions, it made for a good story. And his near turnaround was the stuff of ancient legends, Elanor would give them that. She'd expect no less from ones who'd grown up on elf-stories heard on old Mister Bilbo's knees. But how did  _they_ , her da and Frodo, know it? They'd been asleep, so they said. Did Gollum tell them about it later? When – before he disappeared on that climb up to Shelob, with his heart full of malice and his pride stung by her da's harsh words; or as he was struggling with Mister Frodo in that awful Cracks of Doom place? Not likely, and she couldn't think of any other way for them to know the story.

She had called her da on the point when she'd first realized what he'd done. He was in her and Little Rosie's room reading the Book to them as they lay in bed when the question jumped into her mind, as large and brazen as an oliphaunt in the room. So she'd asked it: "But how did you  _know_  this to write it in the book, if you both slept 'til later?" He had glanced knowingly at Little Rosie and winked conspiratorially with Elanor; the younger girl's eyes were fluttering shut and Elanor knew she'd get better answers if she waited until later. So she let the matter rest, for a time.

Later, though, was slow in coming. She'd found him pottering around in the garden that next afternoon, alone this time, and so had asked him. But she'd received that bane of all eight-year-olds' existences: "You'll understand when you're older, Ellie-bell."

And she  _did_  try not to, truly, but "older" seemed lifetimes away. That next time her da's friends came to visit she'd asked them straightaway if they knew how her da and Frodo could have known such a thing. They smiled down at her and her da had steered her out of the room with a stern look and suggested she and Little Rosie go choose flowers for the dinner-table. She even went so far as to ask for help in a letter, but it got returned as badly addressed. The messenger-service didn't go beyond the borders, they said, an how could they take it just to "The Elves" in Rivendell anyhow?

Time marched on, and her attention turned to other things: adventures hiking with friends down to the Water; beer snuck from the Green Dragon, and the attention of hobbit-lads. Her mum said that she could walk down as far as the Party Field with a lad, unchaperoned, if Elanor didn't dawdle and was back by sunset. And her da didn’t tell her nay, for all he looked ill at the thought. Then there were the kerchiefs, embroidered by her own hand and offered as loving tokens to a long string of lads, and wildflowers pressed between journal pages; Elanor hardly had time to think of childhood mysteries. 

Still, when her wedding day came ‘round she whispered to her father softly: “Am I ‘older’ yet, Da?” It was a question she’d asked often enough when she was younger, a ritual on her birthday every year and often in between, and she hardly hoped she’d ever get an answer to it. She asked out of memory more than curiosity. This time, though, her da had smiled gently down at her. “I don’t know, Ellie-bell. Are you?”

So at last she began to understood. This was one of those questions that he would never answer for her, that maybe  _no_ body could answer, save her own sweet self. But there was an answer to be found. There must be, for she knew her da to be an honest hobbit. She began to turn the question over in her mind when she could spare the time, as she kneaded dough or folded freshly laundered shirts. But the daily bread gave even less answers than her da had, and she wondered why she still thought on it.

That was, ‘til a chance slip of the finger gave her a clue. Her first child was due come spring, and her uncle Jolly had sent her a crate of baby-things from his own children. Her thumb slipped under the collar of a sleeping-gown, pulling out the lining so she saw  _PC_ embroidered on the cloth.  _Petunia Cotton_. Her aunt had been handy enough with a switch, and there’d been little love lost between her and the Gamgee clan on that account. 

But Elanor remembered other things as well. When Petunia had died in childbirth, she remembered how her mum had been so sad she could hardly get out of bed for weeks. Petunia had been the closest thing her mum had ever had to a sister, but she’d not been blind to Petunia’s faults, she’d heard Elanor and the others complain about them often enough. Rose had even once confided to Elanor that she thought Petunia a bit too strict – but she supposed death softened such thoughts.

As she thought that, her eyes fell on the handsome volumes in their red case on the mantle. Why should death soften only her mother’s thoughts. Gollum was a nasty piece of work, much worse than her aunt Petunia, but his death had meant something much more than Petunia’s, too. Her aunt had saved the life of the babe through her death; but with Gollum, it was the whole  _world_. Had her da, or Mister Frodo perhaps, seen something in Gollum they had to work in the tale? Had it really been such a lie after all?

She’d have to ask him, when she saw him next. Such clues deserved following up.

**Author's Note:**

> Little Rosie is my way of referring to Sam's and Rose's second daughter, also named Rose. Bless Tolkien for his habit of naming Gamgee kids after other characters. (Not...) Little Rosie was born in 1425 so is three or four years younger than Elanor.


End file.
